17 

 JAMES ANDERSON December 10, 1799. 



Washington makes some excellent and very pertinent re 

 marks in the following letter to his manager upon the value of 

 system in general, and upon its application to farm manage 

 ment in particular. Standing out in contrast with some of 

 the loose farming methods of today, are his comments upon 

 economy, and the care of tools and machinery on a farm. 



He also makes extensive plans for his farms, and gives de 

 tailed directions for their execution as far ahead as 1803. 



Especial importance attaches to this letter of directions be 

 cause it was written only four days before his death. 



TO JAMES ANDERSON, MANAGER OF THE FARMS 



Mount Vernon, 10 December, 1799. 

 Mr. Anderson, 



From the various plans suggested by you at different times 

 for cropping the farms, which I propose to retain in my own 

 hands, in the year 1800, and with a reduced force of the 

 laborers on them, and the operations necessary to carry them 

 into effect ; comparing these with the best reflections I have 

 been able to make on the subject; and considering, moreover, 

 the exhausted state of my arable fields, and how important it 

 is to adopt some system by which the evil may be arrested, 

 and the fields in some measure restored by a rotation of 

 crops, which will not press hard upon them, while sufficient 

 intervals are allowed for improvement; I have digested the 

 following instructions for my manager, and for the govern 

 ment of my overseers, and request that they may be most 



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